LIVE from EDGE - 12/9/18 - 7 night Western Caribbean Maiden Voyage

[WonderMan3]

1 hour ago, Pennstateman said:

Did you happen to notice if there is much space to sit outside without sun?

 

One side of the Eden outdoor decks is covered. There are some shady spots on the pool deck but they move as the sun moves. 

[WonderMan3]

4 hours ago, kearney said:

Can someone with a scooter get onto the tender? 

 

A woman in a wheelchair was brought on and off of it on our tender. Not sure about a scooter. They might require you to switch to a wheelchair. I would call Celebrity to verify if it is a key concern.

[TomMMD]

23 minutes ago, WonderMan3 said:

For which itinerary

Where are we going?   San Juan, Tortolla, San Maarten

 

My question was whether you preferred the Edge over the other ships.

 

Edited December 15, 2018 by TomMMD
clarification

[chamima]

Adam

Thanks for that review of the Royal Palms.

We're going to Grand Cayman in February from the Silhouette and we were thinking of going there.

Based on your review and the pictures we'll rethink it.

 

[WonderMan3]

We spent the remainder of Friday afternoon relaxing in our cabin. More rain showers passed through right before sunset. That’s when I ran up to the upper decks and captured those sunset shots I posted yesterday. The decks were still wet from the rain and made great reflectors for the colorful sunset. We were a little nervous that the rain may have made the Rooftop Garden Grill too wet for us to dine as we had dinner reservations at 6:30pm. But luckily they had everything nice and dry for us. When the weather is warm with no wind like it was on this night this makes for a wonderful outdoor dining venue. We had an excellent meal. We both started with the short rib chili which tasted fantastic, then I had the tableside Caesar salad which was great while Mike had the bratwurst. He liked the meat but could’ve done without the bun and sauce. For the main entrees Mike had the chicken which he said was very good while I had the ribs which while good in flavor were a little short on meat (pardon the blurry photo). With so much food we decided to share dessert which was the hot chocolate chip cookie with ice cream, a favorite of ours from the Lawn Club Grill. Service was also very good. This restaurant is a definite improvement over the Lawn Club and I would very much recommend.

 

Towards the end of our meal they started playing “Dirty Dancing” on the big screen. This is a great space and much more practical than the Lawn except for one thing. Because it is so wide open it is subject to wind constantly. It made it unusable for many times during our cruise and it seems like they should have set up some better wind protection like those awnings they have over the Lawn. Both this and the Sunset Bar are going to have real issues with this going forward.

 

 

[hcat]

3 hours ago, chamima said:

Adam

Thanks for that review of the Royal Palms.

We're going to Grand Cayman in February from the Silhouette and we were thinking of going there.

Based on your review and the pictures we'll rethink it.

 

We booked a ship excursion that goes to a pvt  beach/mansion(?)  You can do it with full open bar or not..Hope it will be nice...For us GC is a " been there done ALL that " port, including  ine time whrn we ended up watching a cricket final on TV at a  beach bar with locals..

 

Based in Adam's review we would not go to the  Royal Palms.. Appreciate the heads up..

[jcpc]

Adam

Thank you so much for your wonderful "live from" review.  It was marvelous.  I'm so grateful for all the information and pictures that you have provided.  I'm very much looking forward to my sailing in 4 weeks.  I hope you have a safe and uneventful flight home.

Janice

[WonderMan3]

4 hours ago, TomMMD said:

Where are we going?   San Juan, Tortolla, San Maarten

 

My question was whether you preferred the Edge over the other ships.

 

 

I think overall I prefer S-class ships but there are certain things I do like better on Edge. I do like Edge better than M-class. I don’t think I would cruise Edge again anytime soon unless I could get a really good price and there wasn’t a similar itinerary on S-class.

[ATLgirl15]

We were at Royal Palms in September on our Equinox cruise and couldn’t had an opposite experience. Maybe it had to do with time of year and lack of crowds.  I know I brought water from the ship and had no issues with it.  We mostly stayed at one of the bar/restaurant tables and rented one chair on the beach for me.  The staff was perfectly accommodating.  Yes the prices were high but no more so than any other port we’ve been to.  We actually thought we would love to come back but by this time next year Royal Palm will be gone so they can put up a big new resort (I want to say Ritz but I don’t remember exactly).   

[SandG]

Adam, thanks again for all the great pictures and for answering our questions as well.  We love the Celebrity s-class ships but are trying out the Edge in a few months.  We've gotten into such a routine of the things we like to do on our Celebrity cruises that I've been trying to get my head around how we will do the equivalent on the Edge, but am keeping an open mind, and your descriptions do help.

 

For example, someone here asked about an equivalent to the World Class Bar, also one of our favorite places, and you'd mentioned that the Eden bar had a lot of fancy, though expensive drinks.  Is it also considered a full service bar where you can order most standard mixed drinks, wines and beer?  (Things from the classic drink package?)

 

We also like to have a drink with some nice music (guitar, strings) after dinner, usually in the Ensemble lounge and try something from the large selection of wine and have some quiet conversation in Cellar Masters before dinner.  Is there an equivalent of these?

 

I guess that one thing that worries me a bit about the Edge is the number of unique drinking areas is a lot fewer than the s-class ships.  Our last cruise on the Eclipse had the Passport, Cellar Masters, Quasar, Ensemble Lounge, World Class Bar, Pool Bar, Mast Bar, Oceanview Bar, Sunset Bar, & Sky Lounge.  Seems from the deck plans that the Edge just has the Club, Eden, Pool and Sunset Bars, and I'm afraid of them being either too loud or too busy, and hard to get a seat or a long wait to get a drink.  (PS I didn't even count the casino bar or the little one in the buffet area.)

 

I hope you don't get the impression that drinking is a big priority to us, but since the cruise is only 7 days, I want to waste too much time figuring out our best options, which is why reading threads like yours is really valuable.

[WonderMan3]

Finishing off Friday's activities...

 

After dinner we headed down to reception to deal with the credit card situation. Once that was taken care of we took a walk down to Eden to see what was going on there as we had not visited in the evening. There was one performer on the little stage near the bar. He was mildly interesting but the real highlight was the whole space itself with the lighting and music. They really don't even need the performers for this to be a great space. I think if they had some live musical performers, vocal or instrumental, it could work well. Here's a video to give you an idea what it's like.

[WonderMan3]

Here is the cocktail menu for Eden.

 

After we visited Eden we made our nightly visit to the casino. Luck was not on our side though. Slots were very tight and they got back a chunk of my ship winnings.

[WonderMan3]

Here is today’s Daily and disembarkation information plus a photo of the free gift in our cabin. A large photo holder with a picture of the Edge on one side.

[WonderMan3]

Breaking News! Today we learned that the smoking area located slightly above the pool deck is moving. It is being moved to the other side of the large lighted structure and will be above the Mast Grill now. The reason it had to be moved was because there is a large vent at the back of the space which pumps air into the Solarium and apparently it was pumping all the smokey air in there. That space will now just turn into a shaded space for loungers which is what the space above Mast Grill is now. I expect there will now be complaints from non-smokers that they have to pass through this smoking area when using the stairway up from the pool deck to Deck 16. 

 

We also found out that there actually was a smoking space on Deck 5 when Edge first launched. But after the first two day cruise on Nov 23rd which featured media, there were apparently complaints and they stopped smoking being allowed there from the second  cruise on Nov 25th onward. We found this out from a casino staff member who said there have been lots of complaints from players about the lack of a smoking space on Deck 5.

 

Here are photos of the problematic vent and of the space that will become the new smoking area. This will go into effect with the Dec 16th cruise.

[OriginalBoat]

1 hour ago, WonderMan3 said:

Breaking News! Today we learned that the smoking area located slightly above the pool deck is moving. It is being moved to the other side of the large lighted structure and will be above the Mast Grill now. The reason it had to be moved was because there is a large vent at the back of the space which pumps air into the Solarium and apparently it was pumping all the smokey air in there. That space will now just turn into a shaded space for loungers which is what the space above Mast Grill is now. I expect there will now be complaints from non-smokers that they have to pass through this smoking area when using the stairway up from the pool deck to Deck 16. 

 

We also found out that there actually was a smoking space on Deck 5 when Edge first launched. But after the first two day cruise on Nov 23rd which featured media, there were apparently complaints and they stopped smoking being allowed there from the second  cruise on Nov 25th onward. We found this out from a casino staff member who said there have been lots of complaints from players about the lack of a smoking space on Deck 5.

 

Here are photos of the problematic vent and of the space that will become the new smoking area. This will go into effect with the Dec 16th cruise.

 

 

Interesting about the smoking area on 5.  I wonder where the complaints came from.  I figured they cut it out because they only wanted two smoking areas.  If I remember correctly, someone said it was an area on the outside of Eden.  So my thought would be the complaints came from either people passing through or the SVs and aft suites.  You're going to have people passing through almost anywhere, but I thought this wasn't a high traffic area.  If it was the rooms above the area, I wonder if it would be possible to make it a smoking area only when the ship was in motion.  The smoke would probably go aft instead of up.  This would also be when the casino was open.  Maybe a way to cut out two sets of complaints?

Edited December 16, 2018 by OriginalBoat

[WonderMan3]

4 hours ago, OriginalBoat said:

 

Interesting about the smoking area on 5.  I wonder where the complaints came from.  I figured they cut it out because they only wanted two smoking areas.  If I remember correctly, someone said it was an area on the outside of Eden.  So my thought would be the complaints came from either people passing through or the SVs and aft suites.  You're going to have people passing through almost anywhere, but I thought this wasn't a high traffic area.  If it was the rooms above the area, I wonder if it would be possible to make it a smoking area only when the ship was in motion.  The smoke would probably go aft instead of up.  This would also be when the casino was open.  Maybe a way to cut out two sets of complaints?

 

According to the person I spoke to at the casino (who has asked several times since this change to higher ups whether it will ever come back on 5) they have no plans to add smoking back on 5.

[KmomChicago]

Great review; thank you for sharing what you liked as well as the various snafu details, without getting dramatic about every little thing, or about posts here that are less than positive.  You see the artist renderings of the ship but it's not much like the many real world photos with various perspectives as you move around the actual spaces.  Those metal tree sculptures look like what you get when you pour hot metal into cold water?? 

 

I would be like you with that chair hog problem - I never hog, yet see towels all over every chair, but it would be my luck the one time I do leave my stuff while I step away for a few minutes I would become public enemy #1 and either have my stuff moved or get the nasty eye from everyone when I returned.

 

I know live blogging like this takes away time from what's supposed to be your relaxing vacation so it really is generous of you to do so and provide this insider perspective. Thanks again.

[WonderMan3]

And finally to our last day on the ship, a sea day. I had planned to get up really early in order to snag a space in The Retreat again but wound up sleeping in until 9. That was a good thing too as the Sky was overcast and it was breezy (although warm) most of the day do not a great lying by the pool day. So glad we got full days in at both The Retreat and the main pool earlier in the cruise. After showering and dressing it was a little after 10 so too early for lunch so we wandered around the ship to get a few things done. We brought the bottle of sparkling wine that had been in our cabin from day one to Luminae to ask how much it would cost to upgrade the bottle to Perrier Jouet. The maitre’d said she would have to check with the sommelier but would hold it for us chilled until then. (She called later in the day to say it would be $70 to upgrade it so we decided to just have it as is at dinner.) We next went to the Retreat Lounge to see the concierge. There are two concierges but neither was in the lounge and there were a few of us waiting. A staff member called Denise down from the sundeck to help us all. She seemed a bit stressed. We asked her to swap out our baggage tags from #4 to #1 as we had to leave the ship as close to 8 as possible due to having a 10:30 flight. She didn’t have any tags on her so she called Eli to have him deliver some to our cabin. We then asked her to look at our account as no Elite discount adjustment was made to our dinner at Rooftop the night before. She made a call and said it would be taken care of. She was annoyed because I heard her say to the person on the phone that our account had been noted for each restaurant to make that Elite adjustment due to them missing it earlier in the cruise.

 

For lunch we decided to visit Oceanview as we had not done lunch there the entire cruise. The theme appeared to be Indian and Middle Eastern foods. They had a nice roast turkey and pork which we tried. I had them prepare a fresh Caesar salad as well. Overall a good lunch. I like this new Oceanview as it feels very spacious. Staff is all friendly and very present.

 

After lunch we made our way to the casino to do some play. Machines were wicked tight and they got the rest of my ship winnings plus a bit of my Hard Rock casino winnings. We finally met the casino host Nicola as we had wanted to check with her to see about any adjustments that could be made to our account based on our play. She said she couldn’t do anything based on Mike’s play but could for mine. She told us to check back with her in the evening. 

 

We went back to the room to do our packing before dinner as I wanted to see the show at 9:15. We headed to dinner at Luminae around 6:45 and had no waiting. We had Ivan again as our server and he was very pleasant as usual. My photo of the main menu blurred but we both had the fennel soup (creamy and delicious) and the roasted half-chicken (tender and excellent). The desserts didn’t entice us so we decided to hit Oceanview for some dessert later.

 

 

[WonderMan3]

7 hours ago, SandG said:

Adam, thanks again for all the great pictures and for answering our questions as well.  We love the Celebrity s-class ships but are trying out the Edge in a few months.  We've gotten into such a routine of the things we like to do on our Celebrity cruises that I've been trying to get my head around how we will do the equivalent on the Edge, but am keeping an open mind, and your descriptions do help.

 

For example, someone here asked about an equivalent to the World Class Bar, also one of our favorite places, and you'd mentioned that the Eden bar had a lot of fancy, though expensive drinks.  Is it also considered a full service bar where you can order most standard mixed drinks, wines and beer?  (Things from the classic drink package?)

 

We also like to have a drink with some nice music (guitar, strings) after dinner, usually in the Ensemble lounge and try something from the large selection of wine and have some quiet conversation in Cellar Masters before dinner.  Is there an equivalent of these?

 

I guess that one thing that worries me a bit about the Edge is the number of unique drinking areas is a lot fewer than the s-class ships.  Our last cruise on the Eclipse had the Passport, Cellar Masters, Quasar, Ensemble Lounge, World Class Bar, Pool Bar, Mast Bar, Oceanview Bar, Sunset Bar, & Sky Lounge.  Seems from the deck plans that the Edge just has the Club, Eden, Pool and Sunset Bars, and I'm afraid of them being either too loud or too busy, and hard to get a seat or a long wait to get a drink.  (PS I didn't even count the casino bar or the little one in the buffet area.)

 

I hope you don't get the impression that drinking is a big priority to us, but since the cruise is only 7 days, I want to waste too much time figuring out our best options, which is why reading threads like yours is really valuable.

 

There is also the Martini Bar and the Magic Carpet Bar. And if you are in a suite there is the bar up on the Retreat sundeck.

[qhorselvr]

Thanks so much for your post - here we come!

 

[gadabout60]

Adam

Thank you very much for a great review. We are based in the UK and don’t really do sun cruises but I love the S class ships and was intrigued by Edge. It sounds to me like the Magic Carpet is a bit of a gimmick and probably not worth the premium prices.

glad you both had a great trip - set you up nicely for Christmas 

[WonderMan3]

Finishing off from yesterday...

 

After dinner we want back to our cabin and finished packing and put our bags out. Then we headed up to Oceanview to have some dessert. Mike got some soft serve ice cream while I got a bit of Black Forest Cake and Sacher Torte which were fantastic! The ice cream station at Oceanview was really hopping. A huge line formed behind us while we there. I guess when the show gets out everyone heads up for ice cream.

 

After our dessert we went down to the casino so I could follow up with Nicola, the casino host. She said she would be able to remove two charges from our account, the Dinner on the Edge and our lunch at Le Grand Bistro, which came to around $180. That left us with a balance of around $250 which was all spa charges. We were disappointed that she didn't wipe out all the charges like the hosts had on our two previous cruises on Silhouette and Reflection. Seeing this along with the removal of  a whole group of our Sapphire level benefits earlier this year shows how Blue Chip Club is really getting cheap with their players. After meeting with Nicola we went to play off the free credit we had earned from our player points. Mike blew through his quickly but I was able to play for a bit on my $120. As it got to 9pm we headed off to see the cruise's final show called A Hot Summer Night's Dream which was basically just a reinterpretation of A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare with dancing, singing and acrobatics. It was a okay show. It had some good moments and some duds. The shows on this cruise are still definitely an improvement over past Celebrity shows. I shared some videos of the show below.

 

After the show, Mike went back to the cabin while I went to play off the last of my free play. I hit a big bonus on a slot and cashed out $500. At the end of this whole trip I am going home $1500 up which is great. Mike didn't do as well but is still coming home with money.

[chamima]

Thanks for the videos!

The "scenery" backgrounds are beautiful but the show itself appears like a remake of everything they've been doing for years.

Elysium on the Eclipse is so innovative and wonderful that I was hoping to see more of that creativity.

The performers are very talented - not taking anything away from that - but the shows themselves just are missing something.

Was that your take away also?

[WonderMan3]

This morning we woke up at 6am. We headed to Luminae for breakfast a little after 7. This was our first breakfast there the whole cruise. There was no waiting and we finally got a window seat! Mike had a basic scrambled eggs and bacon breakfast while I had the Eggs Benedict with bacon and hash. Everything was good and put a nice finish to our dining on this cruise. After breakfast we headed up to the Retreat Lounge to wait for our number to be called for disembarkation. The lounge was pretty full but we managed to find a seat. Within ten minutes they called groups 1-4  which was the entirety of suite guests, so everyone moved in one big mass to the elevators. The concierges and suite managers were there calling elevators up to 15 and setting them to go express to 5. They must not have set ours correctly though as it kept stopping on floors. We got to 5 and it was a short walk to the gangway and into the terminal.  Inside the terminal though was a long walk to get to the customs and baggage area. First you go through a facial recognition check so you don’t need to show a passport. Then you claim your bags and if you have nothing to declare you  sail right through customs with no stopping. It was pretty painless. When you exit from customs if you want a taxi it’s a long walk (when you have bags) all the way over to the main entrance of the terminal and then across the street. When we got to the taxi stand there was a huge line so we decided to go with a group van situation from a guy who was advertising near the taxi line. It cost us $11pp but we were immediately on our way. It was 8:30am and we had a 10:13am flight so we needed to get going. Unfortunately we didn’t think it through fully and wound up stopping at all airport terminals before getting to ours. But we arrived for check in by 8:50.

 

Jet Blue has eliminated curbside check in for some reason so we had to go inside to check in. We are Mosaic luckily which had a short line as the regular line was super long. Our even more speed tickets let us move through security faster but we hit snags when an agent’s passport scanner went down and then she got pulled into an argument with some passengers over some duty free box of alcohol not being in the proper container. Once past all of that we headed to the gate with 19 minutes to spare before boarding. Closer than we normally like but still an okay cushion. Our flight left and arrived on time in Boston with only some minor bumps in the flight. Our driver was waiting for us and we were home by around 3:30pm.

 

Well that basically wraps it up. I still need to go through my Key West photos and will post an update of information about our day there. And I will post a full review of our Edge cruise soon as well. I hope everyone enjoyed following along. We’ll be off on another Celebrity vacation in less than three weeks when we board Summit on January 5th for a 12 night Caribbean cruise. Hope to see you following along then! 🙂

 

 

Edited December 16, 2018 by WonderMan3

[WonderMan3]

17 minutes ago, chamima said:

Thanks for the videos!

The "scenery" backgrounds are beautiful but the show itself appears like a remake of everything they've been doing for years.

Elysium on the Eclipse is so innovative and wonderful that I was hoping to see more of that creativity.

The performers are very talented - not taking anything away from that - but the shows themselves just are missing something.

Was that your take away also?

 

Yes. That’s exactly what we said to each other. They don’t quite “get there” if you know what I mean. The singing, dancing and acrobatics are all good but there are never any moments that make you say “wow”. I think in order for them to get there though they would need to spend more money on an entertainment director who could take them to that next level. My expectations for cruise ship shows are always very low though so I felt that they exceeded that so I enjoyed the two shows we saw.